Name: Abbie GinsbergAge: 31Hometown: Encinitas, Calif. Connection to your teammate: Dating DivorceesCurrent occupation: Dance Instructor/Choreographer Describe what you do: I technically train competitive students which includes tap, jazz, turning/jumping and condition classes. I also choreograph dance routines and desugn costumes/props for competitive dance groups and soloists on a regional/national level. Favorite hobbies: Dance, design and exercise. 3 words to describe you: Creative, athletic and thoughtful. What is the accomplishment you are most proud of? I am most proud of the training and growth that I have provided for the past eight years at my dance studio as well as the accomplishments that I have helped my students to achieve. It is so rewarding to see students achieve their goals and grow as dancers and human beings. What famous person reminds you of yourself? Katniss What famous person reminds you of your teammate? Hugh Jackman for his stellar good looks (not for the song and dance talent, though.) What scares you most about traveling? Getting lost and not having the ability to communicate. What excites you most about traveling? I hate how generic this is, but it is true… Exploring new places that I have never been to before. Biggest challenge you and your teammate will face on The Race together: I would have to say it's a tie between learning to communicate and not piss each other off at the same time. We can be juvenile and sarcastic with one another. The other would be our battle for control/power between over each other. We are both Type "A" and can be bull-headed.Pet peeve about your teammate: He’s addicted to his phone and can’t disconnect easily. Also, his impulsivity can cause problems.What country and place would you most like to visit and why? I would love to visit Paris, France and go back to the 1920s. Can we make that happen? Last time I went I was 21 and broke. I could barely afford a baguette. I’m hoping this time will be a step up from that. What do you hope to accomplish by running The Race (other than winning one million bucks)? I’m hoping to gain some clarity on what I mean to Ryan. I feel lately that our relationship has become a rollercoaster. The highs are high but the lows are low. I am trying to be patient, but I know what I want and right now he can’t give that to me.

Name: Ryan DanzAge: 35Hometown: San Diego, Calif. Connection to your teammate: Dating DivorceesCurrent occupation: Financial Service Company Owner and Start Up Company EntrepreneurDescribe what you do: Creating, Communicating and Implementing. Favorite hobbies: Brazilian Jiu Jitsu 3 words to describe you: Positive, unfiltered and danger seeking. What is the accomplishment you are most proud of? Forming, developing and branding an ever-lasting, internationally recognized and reputable financial services firm with over 6.5 billion dollars in assets under service/management. What famous person reminds you of your teammate? Oprah, because she is giving, smart and successful. What scares you most about traveling? Being taken and held hostage.What excites you most about traveling? Immersing myself in new environments and new people. Absorbing a new culture. Biggest challenge you and your teammate will face on The Race together: When we fight I spit venom and don’t tend to converse like a normal human being. Pet peeve about your teammate: She is over analytical, doesn’t compromise and plays the victim. What country and place would you most like to visit and why? Thailand – It looks beautiful and is close to other counties. I hate traveling to just one place; I’d prefer to have access to nearby countries. What do you hope to accomplish by running The Race (other than winning one million bucks)? I hope to gain clarity about this relationship. Can it work at a time when I want to be boyfriend/girlfriend and she wants something more?

Photo Credit: Chris Lipson CBS

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RFF's Golden Rule:Have RESPECT for each other, regardless of opinion. This of course includes no flaming/insulting other users and/or their posts.

Have to mention that Ryan was a contestant on The Apprentice:Martha Stewart and made it to the final four.That isn't being mentioned to be a negative, just that some of y'all may realize you've seen Ryan before, and now you know why. That said. I'm a bit predisposed to like Ryan, because I liked him on TA:MS and had thought he'd win that season. So it ought to be interesting to see how things are now with Ryan and how he handles the Race. (And we'll get an answer to the question of whether Martha Stewart is harder to deal with than the Race.)

Nice article explaining more about their prep and how they were picked!

S.D. couple takes on The Amazing Race Emmy-winning reality TV show's 21st season premieres Sunday Abbie Ginsberg and Ryan Danz, aka The Dating Divorcees, make up one of the 11 teams competing in the upcoming season of "The Amazing Race." CBS Written byMichael James RochaWhats new: This year, 11 teams will race around the world for a prize of $2 million instead of the usual $1 million. The competition will take teams through three continents and nine countries, spanning 25,000 miles.

When: 8 p.m., Sunday

Abbie Ginsberg and Ryan Danz knew auditioning for the reality TV show The Amazing Race would push their fledgling relationship to new heights  and in some cases, new depths.

After the couple found out they had been picked for the 21st season of the Emmy-winning reality TV show  it picked up its ninth Emmy on Sunday  they went into full training mode.

First up: addressing Ginsbergs fear of enclosed water spaces.

I threw five pennies into my hot tub, asked her to dive in and I closed the lid, Danz said.

And thus began their intense and grueling training regimen for The Amazing Race, which makes its season premiere at 8 p.m. Sunday on CBS.

The couple  aka the team of The Dating Divorcees  sent in a tape to try out for the show last December. That was soon followed by an email from the shows producers expressing interest. And in January, a phone interview.

After producers found out that Danz was no stranger to reality TV  he was on the 2005 season of The Apprentice: Martha Stewart  Ginsberg and Danz were told the show does not bring on people from other reality shows.

So that was that  until late March when reps from the show called Ginsberg with some good news: Theyre on the show.

A team dropped out, and one of the executives was on The Apprentice: Martha Stewart when I was on it, Danz said, and she thought Id be great on the show.

The rest is reality TV show history.

How the couple  hes a businessman from Encinitas and shes a dance instructor at the Carlsbad Dance Center  does on the show is top secret, or as they say in TV parlance, youll have to tune in to find out.

In the meantime, the couple, under clear orders from CBS to be tight-lipped on details about the upcoming season, took some time to answer questions  some questions, anyway  about what it was like preparing for the show.

Q: How did you prepare yourselves  physically, mentally?

Ginsberg: After we found out we were in the running, we took it upon ourselves to start training. We watched several seasons of the show to see what kinds of tasks we might encounter, and we made a spreadsheet of both physical tasks and mental tasks. We did kayaking, rock climbing and even took a navigation compass class. We did a lot of physical training  running with backpacks, working out in the gym, Pilates, running on the beach. For the mental part of it, we did crossword puzzles, Sudoku . And we really worked the kinks out communication-wise ... a lot of that was just working on the tasks and trying to figure out how we communicated with each other.

Danz: One major thing we had to do together was I had to teach Abbie how to drive a stick shift. We would spend a few hours every week. We got into our worst fights over that stick shift. It was, by far, the best preparation we could do as a couple ... . Its funny, we only had a year of time together, a dating relationship, before doing the show. Were not married, so we had to accelerate the relationship and find out who we are as a couple.

Q: Speaking of being a couple, were you at all nervous about putting yourselves out there as a couple  you know, be under scrutiny?

Ginsberg: We talked about this a lot. Respect each other and dont put each other down and call one another nasty names. As a teacher, there are 700 to 800 kids in Carlsbad who know me. Add to that the number of parents and siblings, were talking about a large of fan base of children and families. It was important to me to be a good example and be respectful of each other and not condescending and rude during the competition.

Q: How ready were you when you started competing?

Danz: We trained a lot, but Ill be honest, you either have it or you dont when it comes to these kinds of competitions.

Ginsberg: You have to have the combination of brains, the physical strength, street sense and luck  thats what makes the show exciting. ... We dropped off the face of the earth while we were training. We were kind of living a hermit lifestyle. Wed bust through an episode and train and do it all over again. It was good preparation.

After producers found out that Danz was no stranger to reality TV — he was on the 2005 season of “The Apprentice: Martha Stewart” — Ginsberg and Danz were told the show does not bring on people from other reality shows.

I suspect the producer who had worked with the Martha Stewart season had no problem having Ryan's casting prove to be a dig at Mark Burnett and Donald Trump. And my recollection of that season was that Ryan was popular among viewers during that season.

Dom El, your link to the Ryan Danz website has great insights into what actually happened during the first leg of the race. I hope you can provide these for as long as they remain in AR21, although I suspect that just using www.ryandanz.com will suffice.

That was a really good blog post from Ryan, and I knew before he mentioned towards the end of the entry that he had been a long-time fan because he was capitalizing Race Racing Racer, etc., which only some of us do when referring to the Race. I'll be going back to check his future entries. Since the bit about the other team's error at the Roadblock wasn't shown, and confirms what I had said about the monster truck driver team....that if the roadblock task was done wrong, but the team then does it correctly, there's no additional penalty as the time lost is the penalty.